The Rules screen in an assessment shows your chart of accounts, one row per account. For each account it shows how much of the spend your rules cover. Avarni can suggest rules for you. You open an account to see its rules and suggestions, and decide on each one.
Old links to Ledger Analysis now open this screen.
What do I need before I start?
The Rules screen needs two things in the assessment:
A chart of accounts. Without one, the screen shows Import a chart of accounts first.
A general ledger. Without one, the screen shows Import a ledger first. See Upload your general ledger.
How do I open the Rules screen?
Go to Assessments and open the assessment.
Select Rules.
What does the account list show?
The card at the top shows Share of ledger spend covered. Covered spend is spend a rule puts in your footprint plus spend a rule excludes. The solid part of the bar is in your footprint. The hatched part is excluded by a rule.
Each row is one account. The columns are:
Column | What it shows |
Account Code, Account Name, Account Type | From your chart of accounts |
GHG Category | The category set on the account |
GL Spend | The spend on the account in your ledger. Shown when no trial balances are selected |
Change in TB Balances | The closing balance minus the opening balance. Shown when you select a pair of trial balances |
Spend Covered | How much of the account's spend your rules cover. A green tick means 100% |
Rules | How many rules apply to the account, and how many suggestions are still pending |
Emissions (tCO₂e) | The emissions from the account |
The list starts with the largest movement first. Select a column heading to sort by it.
Accounts excluded in your chart of accounts stay in the list, greyed out, so the list matches your trial balance row for row. You cannot open them.
How do I narrow the list?
Type in Search accounts to find an account by name or code.
Select Included accounts only to hide excluded accounts.
Select Not fully covered to show only included accounts with spend that no rule covers.
Use the trial balance control at the top to compare two trial balances.
Select the download icon to export the list to Excel.
Avarni remembers your filters and sort for the assessment the next time you open Rules.
How do I get suggested rules?
Each set of suggestions comes from one analysis.
Select Suggest rules.
If you have run an analysis before, choose Start from: Blank, or A previous analysis to copy its settings, business context and attachments.
Give the analysis a name if you want one. If you leave it blank, Avarni names it.
Under Countries, choose the countries the analysis covers.
Choose the Factor set and Factor year.
Choose the fields to use, and add business context if you want to.
Select Suggest rules.
A strip above the list shows progress. When the analysis finishes, it says the analysis is ready to review and how many suggestions it made.
Use Suggestions from to choose which analysis you are reviewing. The Rules column counts pending suggestions from that analysis.
Why can one analysis not cover every country?
Each analysis applies one factor set. A factor set is regional, so a single analysis cannot apply Australian factors to Australian spend and United States factors to United States spend.
If your general ledger covers more than one country, run one analysis for each factor set you need, in the same assessment. The analysis reads only the rows in the countries you chose, and it suggests rules only for those rows.
Each row takes its country from the country column in your ledger file. If there is no country column, every row takes one country. See Upload your general ledger.
How do I get fewer, more accurate suggestions?
The analysis groups your transactions by the fields you choose under Fields to include. You can choose up to 10 fields. Under Order of importance, drag the fields into order. The analysis uses the top field first. It uses the next field where the top field is empty or unclear.
A suggestion can use an unusual word from the description as a keyword. Select the info icon on a suggestion to read why the analysis chose it. If the word is not a reliable signal, ignore the suggestion or refine the account.
To get fewer and better suggestions:
Choose fewer fields. Choose fields that describe what was bought, such as Account Name, Supplier or Description.
Do not choose two fields where one is a subset of the other. For example, choose only the more detailed of two category levels.
Run analyses in layers. First run an analysis on Supplier, and accept the rules for suppliers that sell one kind of product. Then run a second analysis on Description or Account Name.
For account-level suggestions, run an analysis without Description.
Start with the accounts that have the largest movement.
Can I give the analysis context about my business and suppliers?
Yes. When you create an analysis, use Business context (optional). Describe your business, your main cost categories and your key suppliers. You can enter up to 8,000 characters.
You can also attach up to 5 files of up to 10 MB each. You can attach CSV, Excel, TSV, PDF, Markdown and image files. You cannot attach Word files.
A list of your suppliers and the products each one sells helps the analysis choose the correct factor for supplier rules.
Business context guides the suggestions. It does not add transactions. To add procurement data, upload it as a ledger file. See Upload your general ledger.
Does a new analysis read every transaction again?
No. A new analysis reads only the transactions that no rule classifies yet. It reads only included accounts, and only rows in the countries you choose.
This means:
You do not need to delete data to analyse the transactions that are left. Run a new analysis.
When you upload more data, your accepted rules apply to it. Run a new analysis to get suggestions for the transactions that your rules do not classify.
An analysis that you ran before does not make new suggestions for new data.
You cannot limit an analysis to one uploaded file.
Why did my analysis return no suggestions?
Open Suggestions from. Each analysis shows its status and how many suggestions it made.
Errored: the analysis stopped with an error. Start a new analysis.
Completed with 0 suggested: the analysis found no unclassified transactions to suggest rules for.
If you expect unclassified transactions, check these points:
The countries in the analysis match the country of your rows. A row with no country takes the default country.
The rows belong to included accounts.
The fields you chose contain values in your file. The analysis skips a row when all the fields you chose are empty.
What does an account show?
Select anywhere on an account's row.
The top of the account shows:
The account code, name and GHG category.
Share of account spend covered.
With a pair of trial balances selected, the change in the trial balance, and whether the GL ties to it. Ties to GL means the ledger matches the change. Otherwise Avarni shows how much the GL is over or under.
Use Next account and the back arrow to move through the list without going back to it. When an account has no uncovered spend and no pending suggestions, Next account turns solid to show you are done.
Each row in the account is a rule or a suggestion.
The Rule column shows the name and the conditions. A sparkle icon means an AI suggestion. A note icon means a manual rule. Select the info icon to read why a suggestion was made.
The Action column shows what the rule sets: the factor, the GHG category, or the status.
Spend on account shows the spend the rule covers and its share of the account. Select the transaction count to see the transactions.
Decision shows where the rule or suggestion stands.
Two rows sit at the bottom:
Not covered by any rule. Select the transaction count to see those transactions.
Total. This adds up applied rules and spend not covered. Pending suggestions are not included, because two suggestions can claim the same transaction.
Use the status buttons to filter the rows: Pending, Applied, Ignored and, after a refine, Replaced.
How do I accept or ignore a suggestion?
On a pending suggestion, select Accept or Ignore.
To decide on several at once:
Tick the pending suggestions.
Select Accept or Ignore in the toolbar.
An accepted suggestion becomes a rule. It shows as Accepted.
To undo a decision, hover over Accepted or Ignored and select Revert to pending. Undoing an accepted suggestion removes the rule it created. You can only revert a suggestion while its analysis is selected in Suggestions from.
You can also accept suggestions on the ledger itself. Go to General Ledger, select Preview run and choose an analysis. Each row shows the suggestion that would classify it. Select the accept icon on a row, then select Accept rule.
How do I refine the suggestions on an account?
If the suggestions on an account are wrong because Avarni is missing context, tell it.
Select Refine suggestions.
In What should we know about this account?, describe the account. For example, which suppliers or descriptions mean what.
Select Refine suggestions.
Avarni suggests new rules for the account using your note. Suggestions your note rules out are marked Replaced. Avarni keeps your note with the account and uses it in later refines.
A refined rule can match transactions outside this account. Read its conditions before you accept it.
How do I add my own rule to an account?
Open the account.
Select Add rule.
Build the rule and save it.
The new rule starts with the condition Account Name equals this account, so it only applies to this account unless you change that.
To delete a manual rule, hover over Applied and select Delete manual rule.
Which rule wins when two rules match the same transaction?
The first rule in the rule order that matches a transaction wins. Later rules never see that transaction.
An accepted suggestion goes to the bottom of the rule order, below every rule that already exists, including rules you accepted earlier.
When you accept several suggestions at once, Avarni adds the narrowest first. The account's catch-all suggestion always goes last, because it matches everything the others would.
A manual rule from Add rule also goes to the bottom.
On an account, pending suggestions are listed in the order they would be added.
A rule applies to every transaction in the assessment that meets its conditions, not only to the account you accepted it on. If an earlier rule already claims a transaction, a new rule does not change it.
To change the order, see Build classification rules and set their order.
Who can do what?
Admins and Users can start an analysis, accept, ignore, refine and add rules.
Viewers can open the Rules screen, open accounts and export the list. They cannot change anything.
Why does the page show an error straight after an update?
When Avarni releases an update while you have the app open, the page can show Avarni hit an unexpected error. This happens because your browser is still running the previous version.
Select Reload page. The page loads the new version. Your data is not affected, and every decision you already made is saved.
If the error is still there after you reload, contact Avarni.
What happens next
Rules you accept apply to every matching transaction in the assessment. Go to General Ledger to review the classified transactions. To change or reorder rules, see Build classification rules and set their order.
Before you rely on the numbers, check that the ledger is complete against your trial balances. See Check your general ledger is complete against your trial balances.